


Goodbye is the Hardest Thank You

by MiladyAlluca



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.2 Spoilers, Angst and Feels, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24613261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyAlluca/pseuds/MiladyAlluca
Summary: The inky black expanse overhead, dotted with crystalline lights and the silvery circle of the moon, still had not ceased to amaze her. It filled her heart with joy and her sense of wonder with curiosity.  An intimate reminder of the journey she’d gone on, would still traverse.  The people she’d met and loved and would lose, lost to the beautiful brilliance of the dark.In which Ryne has to say goodbye to the found family she loves.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Goodbye is the Hardest Thank You

**Author's Note:**

> My take on what could happen when Ryne has to say goodbye, and how she expresses it.

Urianger had woken her up upon the witching hour, still pitch black in her Pendants apartment with a gentle but insistent prodding at her shoulder. Ryne rolled over in bed and looked up, blinking blearily at the tall man. He was bent at the waist, shielding a small lantern with one hand from shining mercilessly upon her slowly adjusting eyes.

“Uri-” Ryne began to mumble, but the man shook his head, smiling gently and glancing over Ryne’s shoulder where Gaia quietly snored beside her, a lump of blankets and pillow with a young hume hidden somewhere in the midst.

Ryne’s lips tightened together as her wits came back to her. Urianger turned his head and tilted it back, towards the apartment door. The redhead nodded, being careful as she slipped out of bed hopefully without disturbing her companion. 

They had originally thought to request an apartment for Gaia, but Ryne had suggested it less burdensome to the Crystarium should they just bring another bed frame into her own chambers that they might share. Gaia had not put up much of a fight, but they’d still been awaiting the craftsmen to finish the frame. Used to sleeping on bedrolls in the Empty, the two hadn’t had many complaints about sharing a single bed for the time being.

But the thoughts were quickly fading from her mind as Ryne slipped past the threshold of the apartment. Urianger was waiting for her in the hallway, his black robes glimmering in the lantern’s light as though tiny stars were woven into the fabric. Ryne felt almost underdressed in her loose fitting sleep shirt and bottoms.

“Come,” he further urged, stepping lightly in his slippers and continuing down the hall toward the stairs. Ryne padded diligently after him in silence.

They didn’t stop walking until they’d passed the Crystarium’s aetheryte plaza and up the stairs to the balconies. Urianger had selected one balcony in particular it seemed after staring up at the starry sky with some consideration. Ryne stayed quiet all throughout, watching the back of Urianger’s shoulders as he ever so purposefully walked.

When they stopped, Ryne leaned herself against the balcony ledge, folding her hands together to hide their trembling.

Snuffing out the lantern, Urianger set it down on the ground beside his foot and joined Ryne leaning against the wall. It barely came up to his waist, for all his height. His body beside hers was a familiar comfort, however. At their closeness, she could still smell the usual tea leaves and parchment scent that lingered in his presence.

They shared a tense silence as Urianger smiled down at her with sad amber eyes. Lifting a hand, his bracelets clinking together quietly, he pointed toward the stars overhead. Ryne followed his line of sight and felt her chest grow tight.

The inky black expanse overhead, dotted with crystalline lights and the silvery circle of the moon, still had not ceased to amaze her. It filled her heart with joy and her sense of wonder with curiosity. An intimate reminder of the journey she’d gone on, would still traverse. The people she’d met and loved and would lose, lost to the beautiful brilliance of the dark.

Urianger tried to teach her to seek patterns and shapes in the stars since the fall of the Lightwarden in Il Mheg. Ryne couldn’t always find them right away, but she was beginning to pick up on it. The elf had told her of an ages old tome still in the scholar’s house that wrote of many such constellations seen over a hundred years ago from before the Flood. 

He reminded her of the book as they stood on the balcony.

Ryne promised to find it.

As his hand had fallen, Urianger rested his palm warmly on Ryne’s shoulder. It wasn’t until he squeezed that her composure broke and the tears escaped, rushing down her cheeks, burning as she shook. Urianger pulled her into his embrace and Ryne gasped for air as she buried her face in the dark cloth of his robes, trying to commit his scent to memory.

They stood out on the bridge until the first glimmers of sunrise burned at the horizon.

When Ryne returned to her apartments before the first light could begin to glow around her closed blinds, she was surprised to find Gaia sitting up in bed. Urianger had already left the hall, and so she was alone to close the door and continue inside.

The tears were still fresh wounds, bleeding freely and they stung from salt.

Gaia’s dark eyes softened and she opened her blanket cloak like a wing, showing Ryne a space where she might fit against her side.

Ryne tripped in her haste to meet her.

* * *

Meeting on the steps before the Crystal Tower, all together, somehow felt like deja vu. A little uncomfortable and familiar all at once. Ryne looked up at everyone’s bittersweet faces feeling her resolve cracking from the weight. Gaia’s touch at the back of her wrist drew her out of her thoughts, and Ryne looked to the other girl with a grateful smile. Gaia looked away, lips drawn tight.

“The Exarch shall see you, allow me to show the way,” Lyna called out to them. Her stern expression was all the more familiar and comforting...until she beamed, “You must be so excited.” 

Ryne felt her lower lip quiver.

Walking the old path to the Ocular, Ryne naturally fell into step beside Thancred, matching his pace as his heavy boots beat the crystalline walkway and her sandaled heels made nary a sound. She realized with a heavy heart that he was walking more slowly than he usually might.

Looking up at him, remembering the bright, beaming smile he’d shown her the night before during their group dinner, she didn’t know how to feel seeing his eyes looking tired and red-rimmed. His thin lips tugged into a forced grin and she smiled back...unable to unfurrow her brows. Thancred bowed his head a moment, lifting a hand to run calloused fingers through silver tresses.

“You always do manage to see right through me.” He said after a moment.

“Two eyes open, always,” Ryne jested half-heartedly.

Thancred laughed through his nose, a soft sound.

When his hand dropped from the back of his neck to hang near his hip, Ryne couldn’t help thinking he looked...so lonely. She wanted to reach out and grab his fingers tightly, and squeeze until she couldn’t any more.

She wanted to.

* * *

The Exarch stood waiting for them with Beq Lugg at his side. The Nu Mou looked pleased with themselves, and the Exarch looked every bit as warm and welcoming as he ever had...but there was a heaviness to his smile and a spark in his ruby gaze that suggested for all of his excitement and precedence, he did not want their story to end.

Ryne once wondered if one could slice off the back cover of a tome and the front cover of its sequel to mesh the two stories together. She’d suggested such to Urianger once a few years ago, when Thancred had told her she might ask for one tome and she’d become fixated on a series. The elf had grinned and laughed, such a novel idea...but then he’d explained, at nauseating length, that the process would go against the way the stories had been originally bound. Her intentions may have been kind, but the books would suffer and weather and break apart in her bag, never to be read again.

She had felt sorry for the books that she had considered taking apart.

She wished she could erase the feeling from her chest, the tightness threatening to make her ribs pierce her lungs and the rock weight of her heart hanging limp under her breast.

Ryne couldn’t bring herself to look up from her feet until they began speaking. She felt someone take her hands and looked up into the pale blue gaze of Alisaie.

“Be careful out there,” the elf girl said sagely. “I’ve seen what you can do, what you can accomplish. Don’t forget that, yourself.” Her smile was dazzling, a flash of teeth between peach pink lips almost wicked in her excitement.

“I will...and I will miss you.” Ryne promised, smiling back and bracing her shoulders.

Alisaie’s confidence faltered and something in Ryne felt kinship. It was almost a beautiful moment, until the silver haired elf was pulling Ryne close to her and wrapping her arms around her neck.

“Oh to hells with it,” Alisaie spat, her voice sounding as though barely held together. 

Ryne stared outwards with wide eyes, unsure what to do at first, her hands held out with fingers spread wide as she stood frozen. But then she returned the embrace. It was then that she realized...Alisaie grasped her so awkwardly but fiercely. This girl with fire in her eyes and sparks in her teeth that had made Ryne want to hide in her own shadow...she would miss her dearly.

Alphinaud separated them, chastising Alisaie over giving Ryne time to breathe. But Ryne only shook her head, a smile plastered on her face as her eyes pricked with moisture that made them glassy. The boy looked at her with a hopeful smile as he held out his hand.

“You’re so smart, Ryne,” he began, seeking his words and falling back on simple phrasing as his pale face turned red in his cheeks. “You’re kind and full of hope, please don't give up on them as they continue to learn and grow...and…” he blushed, looking down to his feet and squeezing her hand tightly. “Watch over the Chais for me...will you?” he pleaded, his voice sounding soft as he tried to bravely grin.

Ryne nodded, pursing her lips tightly as she tugged on his hand to bring him into her own embrace. She buried her face in his shoulder, rubbing her cheeks against his scarf to rub away the trace of tears threatening to fall. Alphinaud gasped before blubbering, holding his voice back as he tried to breathe. Alisaie eased him out of Ryne’s embrace and hushed him as she turned them both away. 

Smiling helplessly, Ryne watched a moment, capturing the rare sight in her memory before a cool presence at her shoulder caught her attention.

“Ryne…”

“Y’shtola.” She stood at attention, causing the mystel woman to chuckle and raise a brow.

“You’re a brave girl. Never let fear hold you back, or you will regret it.” 

“I will, I mean, I won’t,” Ryne began to stammer, taken aback by the ferocity in the woman’s cloudy silver eyes. Y’shtola blinked and smiled.

“And thank you,” she said gently, reaching out to pet Ryne’s cheek, her riveted rings cool to the touch on her skin. “For taking care of them.”

Ryne’s eyes glistened and Y’shtola lowered her lashes, smiling a little sheepishly before looking to the side and sighing. “It seems the father bird wishes to tend the nest, take care, Ryne.”

Ryne furrowed her brows a moment as Y’shtola stepped away, looking down at her feet as she tucked loose hair behind her ear. She glanced through her lashes to see Urianger talking with Gaia. The dark haired girl wiped the back of her hand over her eyes once as her lips began to move. But before Ryne could try to overhear them, she heard a throat clear and she looked up wide eyed into a stormcloud silver gaze.

Thancred smiled, his brows knitting together as he watched her, taking in the sight.

Ryne didn’t breathe.

She couldn’t.

“Ryne, I…” Thancred began, but the Nu Mou suddenly spoke up.

“Everyone, we will begin the incantation! Once we start, we cannot stop!”

Ryne felt ice freezing up the back of her throat and forming a weight on her tongue.

Thancred’s expression fell and a pained look crossed his face. The others glanced towards them, and Ryne felt herself feel as though set aflame under a spotlight. She sought out Urianger’s familiar golden gaze, her lips parting helplessly as she couldn’t make a sound. He smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes, and he nodded.

“There are so many things I…” Thancred began again, his voice cracking, his lips trembling. “Ryne, I wanted to tell you…”

Ryne clutched her hands tightly to her chest, bowing her head and squeezing her eyes shut as the aether in the room began to feel heavy and unsettled. Feeling her nails dig into her palms, the girl exhaled sharply and gasped as she looked up to meet Thancred’s own wide eyed stare.

“Wait!” she cried, teeth chattering as her jaw trembled. She painfully pulled her lips into a smile.

“Th-thank you, for saving me!” she said loudly, unable to control her voice. Tears dripped down her cheeks at last.

She could remember the first time she laid eyes upon Thancred. When he broke through the door into her cell in the bowels of Eulmore and extended his hand, staring at her wildly as though with a broken heart trying to mend. “Minfilia, come with me!” he’d said. She would never forget the warmth of his hand.

Thancred stared down at her, silver eyes aching and lips parted in surprise.

“Thank you,” she continued, her voice a little blubbery but trying to be clear, “for teaching me!”

She could remember the first time he put a dagger in her hand and showed her how to hold it. She could remember the first time she plunged that dagger deeply into a sin eater, screaming, and the pride that swelled in her breast when Thancred commended her for it. She’d never once defended herself before. She’d never once thought she could.

Ryne’s tears dripped from her chin and she breathed heavily, the air not enough to fill her lungs. Her smile crumbled as she grinned widely from ear to ear.

“Thank you for naming me!” she wept.

She could remember the first time she introduced herself to someone with her own name, all her own. It truly felt like a blessing.

“Thank you, Thancred, I…” Ryne’s voice broke into pieces as she cried.

The man’s lips pressed together tightly as his chin tightened and he dropped to his knees before her, throwing his arms around her shoulders and squeezing her tightly.

He pressed his chin to her shoulder as his entire body trembled.

“Ryne,” he gasped out, his voice hoarse from a throat held tight. “I want you to grow old…”

He could remember Minfilia, young and heartbroken and alone in the world on the bloodied streets of Ul’dah.

He could remember the girl in his arms, young and afraid and alone in the world in the cell beneath the golden city.

Ryne’s hands wrapped around his neck, clutching to him for dear life.

He finally pulled away as the aether became sickeningly heavy and shifting like sand beneath his feet. Ryne committed his face to memory in that instant, unblinking as tears rushed down her cheeks. 

He looked heartbroken.

But Thancred smiled.

“...And live happily.” 

His words left his lips and his image began to fade. Ryne felt his weight disappearing beneath her hands and she stood frozen, staring upon Thancred’s smiling face as he began to fade into the aether.

 _“I will!”_ she croaked.

His lips parted and his teeth flashed in a grin before he was gone.

Ryne’s arms embraced nothingness.

Her knees trembled as she stared into the empty space where Thancred had knelt only seconds before. Unable to control herself, her face contorted in grief and her mouth opened wide as she wailed. The sound echoed off of the crystalline walls of the Ocular. Ryne sunk to her knees, collapsing to the floor, still wailing as she buried her face in her hands.

She didn’t stop even after Gaia’s hands sought her own, pulling her fingers away from clawing at her cheeks. She couldn’t remember when she stopped. But when it was quiet, she was being clutched to Gaia’s chest, her face buried against her neck and hands in her hair and at her waist, cradling her close. 

She smelled of flowery perfume. 

Her touch was warm. 

Ryne breathed in deeply.

Her heart hung heavy in her chest, broken but full.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the rushed writing and un-detailed parts, I wanted to write this out so that I could one day illustrate the parts that broke my heart most.  
> I think "thank you" is a beautiful expression that can mean so much, I hope maybe someone else thinks so too.


End file.
